Tainted
by Lisa-san
Summary: The words come confused to me, muffled in the buzzing of my ears... my certitude, my pride, my strength, everything has fallen... everything has been split together with my mask, whose two parts lay on the rocks now, while the man who had already managed


Tainted

**Prelude **

"So... finally I can see your face! You don't look as much as the devil as I had thought!" The words come confused to me, muffled in the buzzing of my ears... my certitude, my pride, my strength, everything has fallen... everything has been split together with my mask, whose two parts lay on the rocks now, while the man who had already managed once to look inside of me makes fun of it, or at least that is what it seems to me... I have always the impression that men make fun of me, that is why I have created to myself a different identity... my mask wouldn't only hide my face, but also my soul.... "Seiya!" I manage to say, "Next time we'll meet, I'll wear my holy armor, and you'll have to fight with your soul!" My words come out of my mouth in a calm, low tone, in the consciousness that it's useless to bring into play my customary stance at this point. "I hope not! I really hope it won't happen ever again!" He says while he directs toward his master. There is a new purpose in my life now... fight to save my dignity from the dishonor... in a way or another.... I can't manage to do anything else but run away... shocked confused... I have to go hiding somewhere... I have to! Tears stream down my face... nobody has ever managed to defeat me. Why you, Seiya? Why did you manage to defeat me for the second time? I run while anger makes my temples beat wildly... I feel lost... I am not watching where I am going, and suddenly I run into something. I bump against a body, it feels like a rock to me... I am about to fall backwards, when something catches me... in the darkness, two tough hands grab my arms... It feels like a dream... I turn to look up at him, and I recognize him... There is no word... nothing to say... his look on me is not surprised, not ashamed of violating a priestess' vows. Only calm... intense... he scans it from up and down... his eyes stop on mine for a little bit, then go down to discover my lips... still holding me hard.... I can do nothing but watching him in shock... wondering what to do. I try to free myself from his grip, "Let go of me!" I hiss at him... he leaves me... and I start running away again... I wish I could die!!!!!! "Shaina!" The imperious voice behind me calls, " I swear on everything I believe in that nobody will ever, ever know." I can't do anything... I can't think, I can't cry, I can't hope... tonight my world has been broken... I have to put the pieces together now...

I am laying down... putting together the happenings of this night... I was out for a while... I couldn't manage to sleep... it happens often.... I am wondering about so many things tonight... so many things who have shocked me.... like seeing that beautiful face.... For a moment, in the darkness... I have believed... I hoped.... I wanted it to be Marin's face.... Then I have recognized her.... it was a shot.... what is going to happen now? I know the rules very well.... I am worried.... scared.... confused.... I feel like I betrayed Marin tonight... by looking at Shaina's face... Betrayed... betrayed who? A dream? An illusion? Someone who doesn't even give me a second glance.... somebody who doesn't have any intention of coming out from behind that damned unexpressive metal to offer her beauty to me? What is love made of? What are emotions made of? Does it take a lot to fall for somebody else and get over someone who can only be a delusion? Somebody who you run after a whole life... somebody that is part of you by now? Does it take a lot to mess up all your beliefs of a lifetime? Can it take a gaze into some beautiful green eyes, in a face that I would have never believed to be so beautiful and pure? I don't know... I'll have to find out...

I hear some knocking at the door... it comes confused... I am still sleeping... I fell asleep as I saw the sunrise, my night has been terrible... the sun brought me a little rest... the night is the moment in which you can't escape ghosts... the night is the moment of fright, and then it comes the day, and washes the fear away... then is when I fall asleep... when my fears, like vampires who suck my blood, get terrified by the sunlight... I direct toward the door... probably whoever was knocking has gone away already... "Who is there?" I shout... no answer... I am scared of opening the door... don't want anybody else to see my face... "Don't worry..." the voice behind the door surprises me, "It's only me... I came to give you something even though you don't deserve it!" I open the door... I feel ashamed and embarrassed... what am I going to say? She doesn't have any fault... "You have a great courage to come here!" I hiss at her while opening the door... "I only hope every time that the little girl whom I trained with will come up again sometimes..." She answers and holds me something wrapped in a piece of fabric... I examine the thing... then open it... It's a brand new mask! Just like the one that was split last night... "And here I have the old one!" she says while she holds me the two pieces... "You don't want anybody to find it on the rocks and start wondering, do you?" She says while I cannot pronounce one only word... She starts walking away... I should say something. Why can't I just be grateful for once? Why I can just feel this as another insult? " I don't need your pity, Marin!" I shout at her... she turns to look at me for a little bit, and says, "Shaina... we are part of the same cake! What happened to you could happen to me anytime... who is going to be there to help a female saint other than another female saint? We are alone! Misjudged! Made fun of! We need more balls than a man to become Saints, and I know how many you have! We have been trained together... we have slept in the same room! We have exchanged dreams and aspirations! Allow me to remember those days... Anyway I can see through the mask, whatever you want to make me think!" That's it... she stalks away... letting me in tears... Marin! You are so naïve! What do you see through the mask? A tainted person! That is all you should be able to see... the girl who trained with you doesn't exist anymore!  
I leave after an hour… I have been grumbling over Marin's action. I feel I could kill her!  
I don't need anybody to be nice to me! I don't want to be grateful to anybody! I just want people to leave me alone! I don't need them! There is only one person I can go to when I feel like this… only one person I feel comfortable with… of course he doesn't know it… I would never admit with anybody whether or not I should need them…   
Walking I find myself on the cliff where I always come when I am upset… and he comes here right after me… maybe he feels it when I am worried… who knows… anyway today I feel grateful he did…  
"What happens, Shaina?" His ear has been medicated… his face is pale, though… "Nothing. How do you feel?" He knows I am lying.  
"You shouldn't have done that last night! Seiya actually fought honestly… It's my fault… I shouldn't have underestimated him!"  
"Cassios what are you saying? That damned stranger got something that belongs to Greece!" I hiss. He stays calm, and replies, "You did too!!! And Marin did too…" he tries to make me laugh… but I can't, "Oh! I see" I reply, " So where is all of that speech about Italians and Greeks being one face and one race?"  
He laughs… "Shaina, I don't want you to feel bad. It's not your fault: you are a great teacher. It's just that… it wasn't meant to be!" I am wondering whether or not he says it only because he wants to make me feel better… I feel his defeat as a failure, instead!  
I never could get into the idea that it doesn't necessarily depend on the teacher whether a student fails or succeeds… it mostly depends on the student's Cosmo: if the teacher works the hardest to develop it, and still can't make it, it's because the student doesn't have the right Cosmo for it… but I still feel that this is a pitiful excuse to sweeten a master's failure!  
"So," he continues, " are you going to tell me what is wrong?"  
I pout, " Nothing!!! What is new in my attitude??? I am always a bitch…only because I am not beating you up you think there is something wrong?"  
He laughs out loud… it's funny how I never manage to talk to people I feel comfortable with… the only thing I do to feel better is being by them… without talking… just the mental touch… just their being there makes me feel better… of course it's not fair to them… of course… as time goes by… they leave me… of course it's not pleasant to be by a person who won't talk!!  
Cassios, though… manages to stay by me and don't talk… he won't question… he won't ask… maybe that is the reason why I hope he comes here when I am lonely… maybe the only one… probably it's just my loneliness… probably I don't even respect him much as a person… after all… it seems like I don't respect anybody…

**The Lion and the sunset**

The day was beautiful… not too hot, not too cold… I had a couple of hours off, and so I decided to go to take a walk along the shore. It always makes me feel better. Sometimes, when I feel oppressed by something, just the sight of the sea gives me that inner calmness that I need. As the sunset approaches, I get melancholic… It's an attribute of the Leo… The sun is my planet, so when I get deprived of his light, I might get a little blue… Some of my trainees who are Leos feel the same… not always of course, but it happens quite often.  
As I walk, I realize that I am not the only one on the beach. I can see two figures walking toward me, but the light tricks that the setting sun creates, which are the last straws of life of a dying day, won't let me see who they are right away… Then I spot them…my heart beats wildly as usual when I see her… They walk together in their last promenade as student and teacher… I keep walking toward them glad to have the chance to say goodbye.  
"HEEEEEY!!!!!" shouts the boy running toward me. He is special to me! Not even for any of my trainees I felt the brotherly feelings I sense for this one. Maybe it' s my devotion toward his master that makes me feel this way… As he places a fake punch on my stomach, I grab his arm and twisting him, I block him on the ground, then ruffle his hair… She watches amused, and a little gloomy, I sense.  
" Don't think that just because you are a Saint now you can really imagine to make it against me!!!" He laughs out loud, " Ok! Ok! Let me go!!! You won! You won!!" He cries among frenzied giggles as I push him on the sand…  
"Good to hear that you got it!" I joke, and then let him go… "Hey, who am I going to look for now that I won't have anybody running away from Marin?" I know the scene moves her… Maybe I am scared that now that Seiya is leaving, the bond between us will be broken, if ever existed?  
" Oh! Don't worry!" He replies, "It won't be difficult that somebody runs away from Marin!!" "WHAT?" She replies with fake anger placing her fists on her hips, and then she tickles his waist, and he runs away from her.  
" I am glad I got to see you before your departure, Seiya." I say. He gets serious, "Thanks Aiolia. I am glad, too." Then he adds, " Hey! I'll be back sooner than you think you know!"  
" Not so soon, though" adds Marin, " I have six years to recover from!"  
We laugh. He is ready to go now. " Good luck boy!" I say, and hug him, "Thanks Aiolia" he replies, then continues, " Well… I had better get going…" He hugs Marin, too…I hear her whispering to his ear, " Do what I told you… do it for me!" " I will," he answers, then he goes away… as the sun goes down, and the cycle of this day completes, another cycle is completing today… another night is coming over me…  
As Seiya walks away, I can swear Marin cries a little… "I'll miss him, too, you know." I say, " His journey is complete, Aiolia… I knew this day would come… and I knew he would succeed… I never doubted it!" I take advantage of this moment where she looks at Seiya disappearing behind the rocks to admire her…. I don't need to see her face…what for? I love her… I love her in everything she does and in everything she is… I find myself imagining the face I saw last night behind that mask… That is the same way I imagine her… beautiful… extremely beautiful… The sun tries to find protection behind the sea, and my sadness increases… I wish I could take her in my arms… kiss her… make her mine here in the sand… give a sense to the night that takes away the light that I need… make her be my light… so that my day will never end, and sadness won't live in me anymore… But nothing happens…other than her greeting me, "I'd better get going now." She says, "Goodnight Aiolia." I grab her hand and hold it warmly… I wish I could see the reaction on her face. " Feel better." I manage to say, " I will." She answers gently…  
I am glad she wasn't mad at me for that… She walks away…the light is really gone now… really gone…

**The cold night of the Snake-holder**

I made sure that everyone is asleep… that nobody is around, and I take advantage of the situation to take a walk… I need it: I need to walk by the sea, to feel that bashing of the waves on the shore. The sun left his place to the moon, like a lover that escapes the woman whom heart he has broken; fooling and bluffing her; his face is joyous… he doesn't care if she lives in an eternal night, because he lives in the light of day, and he doesn't know and doesn't want to know about sadness and darkness…. so it is that the lass comes out at night and cries upon the one who took the brightness away from her… and she runs after him, and he runs away, in an eternal circle where they will never meet… where he'll keep tricking her forever, where she'll never catch him… and she'll live in an eternal night …  
There is nothing more than I love than being alone in the moonlight… me and her keep company to each other…we smother each other's loneliness reciprocally… she knows all of my secrets…she is my best friend…  
The sea is our friend… his natural music accompanying our lonely talks…

Sweet Selene, what is love like? Does it hurt a lot? You always look lonely, sad…pale…did love make you like that?

Do I really enjoy being so lonely? Or do I just like to cry upon myself?   
Where did I end up? Why did I end up there? Why do I keep pushing people away from me? When did this start?  
Sometimes I still feel I need Marin's warmth at night… what did I do to our friendship?

_You sleeping?_  
No…  
_How come?_  
Just not tired… why don't you sleep?  
_I am scared_  
Why?  
_Don't know…_  
Bad dream?  
_Maybe…Marin?_  
Pull in here, trouble- maker!  
_Ah!Ah!_

It was so warm then… I could sleep at night… I can't now… I am too cold… the sound of her voice was so beautiful and maternal…

_All the stars are already extinguished:  
My love can't see  
All of the waters have stopped:  
My love is thirsty,  
All of the lands have been burned:  
My love is hungry  
All of the fairy-tales…I forgot them: my love can't sleep.  
Sleep, sleep, the night will end…sleep, sleep, the war will stop…_

No one will ever sing me a lullaby again… No one will kiss my forehead at night, nobody will pass her hands through my hair to calm me down when I have a nightmare… everything has been broken… everything flew away… across the Ocean, where my sister has been brought… together with her… I cannot allow anybody to love me anymore… not until she will be back… I cannot cuddle anyone knowing that nobody cuddles her… Who has my sister in his heart? Who has my beautiful sister in his heart? Who has in his heart that woman who loved her freedom… who loved her life… a woman whose name meant " the one who brings bliss", and they changed into something that means death… terror… fear… that wild woman who didn't know what she was doing… a wild heart… not mean… just… wild… just unconscious… but nobody would believe that… nobody likes to believe that… a wild horse, that nobody has ever managed to break… my sweet Beatrice… the terrible Geist…  
I can't allow anyone to approach me… not even you, Marin… not even you…  
I wonder, sometimes if you understand why….  
You have never asked me an explanation… you have never wanted to know… you have never tried to get into a fight where I always would try to tug you afterwards, because I couldn't express myself with words… I called you a coward, but I know it wasn't that, I know you are not… you can see through this mask… you know the color of my eyes, of my soul… you never got mad at me… you would swallow all of my insults… and just because you knew I needed to get out my anger… I wish I could tell you that I wasn't mad at you… I was mad at your freedom… at you having shared warm times with me while soldiers were conspiring to incarcerate my sister…  
But you know that… you are wise, understanding, and incredibly strong… this is why I love you, this is why I hate you… because you are pure, and I am tainted!

**Poison-green eyes**

How long have I been here tonight? I don't care… I don't know how late it is…  
The winged horse is bright … he has found his pupil… he is joyful…. He kicks and gallops happily in the sky… he gallops to announce the good novel to his brothers and sisters, and they congratulate with him… It's glory in the sky tonight… but the snake-holder isn't there… he doesn't want to party with them… he has no business in their joy…  
You shining one… you shine upon me ignoring what your happiness brings to my heart… you don't care about what you took away from me last night… you don't even know… you are so chaste, shining one… you are a newborn in a world of cruelty… you think you can save this world… you can't, shining one, nor can the world save you… but you won't get tainted… you never will… like your master before you… you are a nightlight in this darkness…

I keep walking… how far did I get? In the moonlight I recognize a shape… somebody sitting in the sand… I know who you are… I know you… you scare me… I thought I could forget about you, golden one… I thought I could wipe out of my mind that gaze on me, the dishonor of another man seeing my face…  
I should get away, but I don't, I should conspire to kill you, but I am not… my body walks toward the shore where the sea tries to kiss your feet… you avoid it, then you let it… like a spiteful lover… you, just like the sun… just like your planet… you two, like two comrades who seduce and forsake innocent virgins, and then make fun of them the day after…  
Walking toward your figure, I feel like a lass chosen for a sacrificial rite…  
An unlucky one… one that has been forced… not one that has chosen herself to go to the altar where the priest is going to lower his blade on her…

"The water is warm… the sea is calm… do you hear the fishermen singing out there?"  
"I don't think so…"  
"Maybe I am just imagining them… Ah! Ah!" He looks up at me, "Poison-green…"  
"What?"  
"Your eyes… they are poison-green."

Golden one… you are already lowering your blade on me, without either giving me the time to save my last prayer…  
"Why poison? Why not sea? Why not prairie?" I ask with a resigned tone,  
"Because they are poison! Poison-green!"  
He grabs my hand and stares at me… almost angry… hurting me… gritting his teeth… what have I done to you, golden one? Why are you mad at me? Shouldn't I be the angry one? Wasn't I the one to be violated? And what kind of green are your eyes anyway? Aren't they as poisonous as mine? Aren't they poisoning me anyway? Didn't they sting me last night? And what kind of green are Marin's eyes? OH! Right! You haven't seen them yet! Only I did! You wouldn't say they are poison-green! You would say they are as green as a meadow… one which you would like to lay down in, and pick all of the beautiful flowers… that is the kind of meadow you would like to rest in: one full of small, innocent flowers, not one full of spikes… not one where the grass is burned, and all you can find is poison ivy… not one like the one that lays at the bottom of my eyes…  
I free myself from his grip… fortunately he cannot see my tears… and I run away… I have been defeated again…

**Dive in the past**

"So: you are the new entry here, right?"  
"Not really… I have only been changed training camp, I came here long ago."  
"What is your name?"  
"The Master called me Shaina!"  
"And what was your name before the master would call you that?"  
"It doesn't matter! I am Shaina now! The other doesn't exist anymore!"  
"Wow! You got a spirit! How old are you?"  
"Eleven."  
Cleastra was looking at me from behind her mask. I couldn't see her face, but I could spot her tone, and also the way she looked at me from behind the metal: I felt it queer… interested… what kind of interest was that anyway? I didn't see why a grown student should look at me like that…  
"And you have been trained in your country before coming here?" She added with that same unpleasant tone. Her hair was long and blondish, combed in different braids, she was at least a foot taller than me, and rather beefy, yet her body was beautiful, in the respect of her proportions. I didn't feel like answering her stupid questions.  
"So you aren't a real novice, are you?"  
"Well… I only need another year to get my cloth." I said laconically, and sounding in a hurry to get away from her. I didn't like to give all these explanation to her, even because I felt that she was asking me information not because she wanted to be my friend, rather to find a soft spot… In the meantime other trainees approached, and I could feel trouble, so my Cosmo flared against my will…  
"Wowowow! Our dear little one is getting rather edgy!" She teased, and the others laughed. It was clear that she was the "boss" among them… I mean among the novices, but she didn't know me yet! Pretty soon there would be a role exchange here, and if she liked, we could work at it right now! I wasn't scared at all and I started to prepare myself for an imminent fight, but she gestured to the others to stay away from us and continued, "C'mon **_Koukla_**! Nobody here means to hurt you! Rather, I'd really like to be your friend…if you behave, of course." And laughed… "See…everybody who is new here in this section has to go through some… "Proves" you know… I mean, a kind of testing…" Her voice started to sound even weirder now… almost… lustful… but at that time I couldn't know…  
Cleastra approached me a little more and her hand slightly touched mine. I stepped back like a wild cat and hissed at her, "I have no idea what you want from me, but I can already tell you that I am not interested in whatever it is, and most of all, I am not interested in your friendship at all! I am here only to become a Saint, and I have already been going through all of the "proves" you can imagine!" She seemed amused by my aggressive attitude and laughed even louder, "You get even hotter when you are mad… I don't mean to hurt you, you know… just a little… be with you… You see: everybody had better have my protection here, if you do not want to get into trouble, and I intend to give it to you… only… you have to pay a little…. toll!" She turned to look at the others and laughed, and they, like obedient puppets imitated her. I wasn't sure I had gotten what she wanted yet, but it sounded like that kind of "mafia" talking I had heard so often back in Sicily, and didn't like it one bit.  
"You know," she said getting closer and blocking me against a tree I hadn't seen was behind me, "You might like it…" she started to stroke my neck with her index claw, and I felt I was about to throw up… so that was what she wanted?  
She continued boldly, I was so shocked from such approach that I couldn't do anything but staring at her in total amazement… and I was lucky she couldn't see my face… Her voice became seducing all of a sudden " I know you have never done it… See, here is how it works… I'll play the man and you'll play the woman, if I hurt you you'll tell me and I'll stop… It's not as good as doing it with a real man, but it is still good." She was not older than fourteen; I could tell, yet, that last sentence made me understand she was the kind of person who had slept around enough to find men boring so as to want to seduce another girl…. It was really enough for me: my Cosmo flared higher, and so did hers… all the others prepared to attack me, and she said, "You know, **_pethi mou_**, I always get what I want!" Slowly, a thought dawned in me: Marin would have never done this to me! Never… what did this invader want from me?  
In that moment I heard her voice, "That is enough, Cleastra!" I felt secure with her, like I would feel if I had a mother. She was a saint already; she had just won her cloth… while I had one more year to go … "OH! Look! Our brand new Saint already at work! What a dedicated person!" Cleastra exclaimed viciously, still holding my arm…  
"I said: let her go! Right now!" she continued, her Cosmo growing dangerous… "Step away, Aquila Marin! You are out of here now! " She continued not scared at all, which I wondered how could she!  
"Do you want a taste of what a brand new saint is like?" Marin continued. Cleastra let go of me not forgetting to give me one last push on my chest with her fist … "Marin, you wouldn't be this secure if you wouldn't have the protection of the new Leo Saint!" I thought that Marin would give her a lesson because of that last comment, but she just ignored her, and walked toward me.  
In that moment two more figures appeared behind Marin, I had met them also when I got here, five years ago… handsome… very handsome, but it was only a detail… I didn't know that a Saint was allowed to… love… feel… that is why I was so shocked by Cleastra,s action…  
"Is she all right?" one of the two guys asked Marin.  
"Yeah…I suppose so. I guess I got here on time." She said, and then, coming closer, while I had let myself fall on the ground because of the shock, they all squatted before me. One of them had light brown hair, and eyes as green as a prairie… his features where very masculine and deeply beautiful… he was only fifteen, but could have seemed older. In his voice, in the expression of his face, a halo of mystery… of so many untold stories…all of them painful…  
He was visibly fond of Marin, and I couldn't understand whether or not it was reciprocal. She didn't seem interested in anything like that… she was a real Saint: totally detached from the passions of this world, and only projected to serve Athena. She was so pure… I had felt Aiolia's obsession for her since I was only six years old and came here not knowing that men and women where done to attract each other…  
The other one had the same expression as his… like a common icon of unhappiness, although his beautiful, restless blue eyes betrayed signs of hope… hope for this life to get better, for the new coming day to bring something awesome and great. His body was as beautiful as Aiolia's, even though he looked more unconscious than he was… more innocent, maybe… His name was Milo, and he was the new Scorpio saint.

Aiolia and Milo had just won their cloths also, and I had known that Aiolia especially had had a really tough time, because of a story I heard once from a girl who was training with me. She told me that his brother kidnapped a baby here in Sanctuary, and that the baby was supposedly Athena reincarnated, but they didn't know it for sure, for the little girl had to go through a ceremony the day after… a ceremony that would have confirmed her real nature, but Aioros; this was Aiolia's brother's name, took her and the armor of the Sagittarius, and ran away…  
Voices come and go, and they all have the taste of a boring afternoon in which there is nothing better to do but sipping dense coffee made out of clay bricks with a complex ritual and gossiping upon the last happenings in town and then read the future in the bottom of the cup when there was nothing else to say unless one wanted to make it up. …The voices said he was a traitor and the fact that he stole the cloth was unacceptable… now nobody really knew what happened to Aioros, but I did not really see why anybody would do anything like that if not for a really good reason… I don't know… it is the past anyway… The three of them made me stand, "I am sorry you had to find out how tough a training camp can be," Said Aiolia, then added, "That Cleastra is a bully and we'll bring her before the Pope right now!"   
They took Cleastra away, and she turned to me to call me, "VILE!" But Milo punched her very hard in the stomach, and she fell down, to be picked up like an animal from him and Aiolia. As they had walked away, Marin said, "Are you all right?" I was, and I didn't like at all that kind of attention on me. Since my sister had been exiled, I had closed my heart to everybody… even to her… my best friend, who didn't want to let me go… we had slept in the same bed until only few months ago… she would hold me at night, and when none of us was tired, we would talk till morning… talk about everything… talk about our undying friendship…  
Nothing between us was like Cleastra's approach: ours were pure, sincere… we were best friends till exasperation, holding each other so tight like the other was on the edge of a cliff… about to fall… and it was that: I was the one on the edge of the cliff: my sister would have been incarcerated only a month later, and Marin would have gotten her cloth only the day after… was about to be left alone by the only two people I cared about… or maybe, I was the one to isolate myself from them… and would have felt the same as Aiolia felt when his brother betrayed Sanctuary. I was already tainted… the same as Aiolia…  
"You have a trainee to think about! Get away from me!" I hissed at her, "I don't need you! Not anymore!" She had already picked up Seiya… I hadn't even had the chance to see him… it had been a year ago, right after she got her cloth, and I hadn't wanted to meet him. I didn't want anything to do with her anymore… I didn't know I would have met him a few hours after Cleastra's incident. In a way I felt jealous… but in the end, I knew I had been the one to walk away from her…  
"This doesn't mean I care less about you! Even though you are bitchy to me!"  
She said in a sweetly scolding tone… I left her: I didn't want to feel her warmth again! I wanted to forget everything about tenderness! I wanted to become a Saint at the fullness of my possibility! I decided that tenderness was a feeling that a Saint can afford! The price would be too high! "Leave me alone!" I yelled, and she let go of me, "I will, but promise that you'll call me if you need me! Promise!" I turned my head on the side in sign of refusal, and she lifted her mask a little to place a kiss on my temple before walking away… I stayed like that until she disappeared behind the bushes, trembling from anger, and then, swallowing bitter tears I went back to my training, willing to forget the happenings and trained as hard as I could! Using all of my strength on those jerks that had laughed at me when Cleastra had tried to seduce me! I hit harder and harder, for the first time in my life feeling the bliss of hurting people! And I didn't know that was only a training… I didn't know I would have killed for real someday, and with pleasure!  
My opponents were laying on the ground, bloody and exhausted: I had had my revenge for that day… The boss Cleastra didn't exist anymore, now I was the boss, and would have been for long, long time! I left them there, deciding that they didn't even deserve me to call somebody to bring them to the infirmary. I let them over there like beasts and walked out of the camp, beyond the bushes. Something was moving over there, I was curious, and suddenly, from behind a tree, there came a little rabbit… he was so cute, so innocent, just as I used to be… I took my mask off and walked closer, hoping for him to let me touch him… I loved animals, I could be sweet and tender to them, because they couldn't go around and tell anybody… the bunny showed to like me, "What are you doing here, bunny? Are you lost?" And then it jumped in my arms and licked up and down my cheek happily… I laughed a little, he was really cute… it was funny that animals liked me so much…. more than people did… maybe it was because they sensed my real nature… the one I wanted to repress… I could fool people with my behavior, but not animals and their sixth sense…  
"OH! Look at that! The proud Female Saint gets moved at the sight of an innocent bunny!" The young, teasing voice came from behind me, followed by a childish laugh… it sounded like a spring bird… a pretty one, and since I heard it, I felt that it belonged to somebody who would have changed my life…  
"Who are you? What are you doing here? Don't you know that the access to the female trainees camp is forbidden to any boy?" I yelled at him. His face was pure… chaste… and he pulled his tongue out to signal that he didn't know it, and he was sorry…  
"Oopss… I… I am sorry… I didn't know… Hey! But you are wounded!" He said and suddenly tore his shirt's sleeve to make a bandage for a cut I hadn't even noticed on my arm… "Hey!" I protested as he approached me, but he didn't care, and kneeled before me to medicate the wound. I had never felt like that… he was being… sweet… just as Marin used to be… it was like a flashback, an all of a sudden, I felt my heart melting… a warmth taking me… as his hands touched me, as his leg slightly stroke mine, my breath was shortened, my breasts swollen, and I wondered what was going on… It felt…. good…  
It was a different kind of warmth this time… it was different than Marin's… it was not as I felt like this when she would be close to me… what was this new feeling? I felt my lower body tickling… it was a weird, relaxing sensation… I wanted to ask to the boy, whoever he was, not to go away anymore…to give me more than that, because I felt there was more to feel! He kept talking all the time… but I wasn't listening… I was dived in a world of muffled, untold, secret pleasure… "Remember to change the bandage, ok?" He said to me, and then turned back to go away… I hadn't awaken yet… only when he got up and turned his back I realized he was leaving me, and I felt like he was betraying me… One part of me would have liked to stop him and beg not to go… In that moment, I forgot all of my resolutions… "Hey! Wait! What's your name?" But he had gone, and a twinge of fury started dawning in me: who was he to come here mess me up and run away? Who was he to teach me what real kindness is like and then take it back like that? I'll get revenge on you, little one! You can bet on that!!

Shining one: we already had something left unfinished… and now… now that you have seen my face…now that you know both my faces… it's not only for a senseless law that I swear I'll manage to kill you, but also because you broke my own senseless laws! The ones I created for myself and nobody else, the ones that whoever breaks won't know any pity!  
And you, Aiolia, golden one, guard yourself: either you die, or I will! I won't take the dishonor on me any further… I know I can kill Seiya, he is inferior, and I also know that I won't manage to kill you, gold saint, but at least I'll try! I know that this is a lost war! In the end, you invaders will win this battle I have already lost, because I know I have already lost it! I'll have to be the one to die in the end, and I'd rather die than live in the dishonor, but first, I'll get anything I can out of this life! Out of what is left of it! I'll get all my revenges! On Marin, for being pure and for leaving me alone in my dirtiness, on Seiya, for teaching me that I can feel, on you, for insulting and vituperating me, for seeing only poison at the bottom of my eyes, for giving me the poison of yours in a cup of compassion… on those who took my sister away from me… on whoever is clean… while I am tainted!

**Haunted Lion **

How many hours have I slept? Two? Maybe three? I don't know… I don't even feel tired anymore during the day… I wonder whether or not this weird way of spending my nights will affect my work… this walking… mumbling… this not sleeping… So far I am fine… t's just that the night awakes the ghosts… my ghosts… they scare me… I can't sleep… there is no way…

I walk toward the back hall of my temple, where the young maids have already started their daily jobs. Everyday they put flowers everywhere, fill the rooms up with colors… clean them up and open them to the sun, and then prepare delicious meals. I enjoy hearing their fresh voices… their laughs, their joy, feeling their outlook on life: always lived day-by-day, with no worries…

It's an honor for those girls to work in our temples… most of them wouldn't have any other choice, they can go to school this way… As they see me, they run happily toward me and start jumping all around me like pretty elves… all dressed in different peplos in the colors of spring flowers. They manage to make me smile every morning… I take a look at the sunny backyard where the garden is in perfect shape, and beautiful fountains spill joyfully all around and the pool is so invitingly filled up with clean water, but I don't dare diving in it right now, with the girls all around… it is already difficult enough to keep them in line: they don't need to see me in bathing suit also… "Good morning, my beautiful lord" says one throwing her arms around my neck…

"My lord! How do I look this morning?" cries another while petting her hair, which she has combed in a long braid "My lord, will you spend the day here?" another, while hugging my waist and placing her chin on my chest, looking up at me "My lord, come to swim with us…" another says while pulling my hands toward the yard… They manage to make me smile… like little mermaids, little fairies, they bring joy to this house otherwise cold and haunted… but they are nothing but optional… they look at me like to a God… their eyes search for my face, then go all the way down to my feet… admiring… desiring… But not me…  
I take their young pretty faces in my hands and answer warmly, but paternally to all of them that I cannot, that I have to work, I'll be with them next time, then I kiss their foreheads. Like little children of mine, they enjoy the touch of my lips, they long for it, and they compete to have the first one and to cuddle on my chest, their pretty lips curving into a childish frown of disappointment…

Little girls, what do you know about love? You see in me the fathers you are missing… you see in me the knight in shining armor who would never take advantage on you… and you are right: I would never! But when you realize this you don't like it anymore… you feel the first attraction… the first emotion… how do you know I am the right one? I don't know that either… I cannot answer this question… because my hands are tied and my heart is not free… it's taken… taken from the one whom face I cannot see… taken from the brave silver eagle… the one who flies away anytime I try to catch her… Maybe if I wasn't burning for love I would have been different? I would have lured all of you in my bed? I would have brought up the "bastard" everybody thinks a Leo is? Does this Leo even exist? I am not sure about it: I would never make anyone suffer because of me! I never did… is it because my heart was burning for her since I was but a kid?

I don't want to believe it! You girls fill my life up with joy, the echoes of your little screams in my temple give life to this soul of mine, they give me a hope that life can be just as beautiful even without her… but can it really? I don't know why I am getting more and more depressed… but it is happening…

…Shaina…

Only now I remember about her… her poison-green eyes, me grabbing her hand with anger… what would have I done if she wouldn't run away last night? …Marin's former best friend… I try to shake the thought out of my mind… what do I think I am doing? Is it because of the pain I read in those eyes? Is it because I know that after seeing her face I have… tainted her? Is it because I feel tainted myself? What do I think? That I have finally found a companion shaped for me… one by the shameful past? Shameful…. yes... shameful… A past that we didn't decide to make like this… the inheritance of our siblings' crimes… we took their infamy on us, and Shaina became not Ophiuchus Shaina, but the sister of a delinquent!

And I became not Leo Aiolia, but the brother of a traitor; I know that the other Gold Saints feel this way about me… hiding it in a fake appearance of formal kindness… you also, Scorpio Milo! Friend of mine! I know you also feel this way! I know my best friend doesn't exist anymore!

I give the fault to my brother every day for Marin not loving me back! When the pain gets so strong I cannot handle it anymore… when I am beside her and my instinct cries out for her, and the voices in my head, voices created out of my anguish, to break my loneliness, tell me: take that mask off!! Take her! She is yours if you want to! She won't be able to kill you ever, so she'll have to love you! I hate him!!! I hate him for taking my whole life away without asking for my permission! I hate him for having put this weight on my shoulders! I hate him for having abandoned me! And Shaina… how will I adjust her situation now? I have to do something… maybe just behave like nothing happened… after all… nobody saw us, but would she accept that? Would she still feel dishonored? I don't have the courage to start a discussion with her on this point… I should have done it last night… It's like we both are in this state of Limbo… in which we hope to wake up and find out that nothing happened… that her eyes aren't poison-green… that I don't know what her eyes look like…

I walk out of my temple… I need to be in the sunlight! I need it to wash away these ghosts. It's still pretty early… not later than eight, and I decided to take a run before going to see my students… that will make me feel better…

I get down to the village, and while running down at the port, I hear the fishermen who just came back from their night out at see… "Did you hear that on the radio?" They were saying… "The holy armor of Sagittarius… I didn't know it was in possess of some Japanese millionaire, did you know that?" I hear one of them saying to the other… I pretend I am running up and down, it is something people do very commonly down at the port, so they won't suspect I am there listening … the revelation is a stab in my heart… "Well…By the way, they were having a kind of competition in which also that kid… that Seiya who just won the Pegasus Cloth, was participating, and suddenly someone… I think some Phoenix saint or something came out and stole it! He stole the trophy…"

It was terrible! Pegasus knew where my brother's cloth is? Had he always known that? Was he training to become a Saint only in order to get it? And Marin? Did she know it? New ghosts of betrayal take shape in this obsessed mind of mine…. Seiya… my little boy… our little boy: Marin's and mine…. our bond… like if he were our child… has he betrayed me? Has he made a fool of me? New ghosts… new ghosts come to haunt me now… how will I exorcise them now? Marin…. Seiya…. don't betray me… don't leave me alone… I have to go back… I need to see her… I need to know…


End file.
